Every good tradesperson, woodworker, DIY enthusiast or
home renovator needs a solid cordless drill/driver to carry them through
their day-to-day tasks. As you probably know, cordless drills can cost
anywhere from US$10 up to $250 (and sometimes more). Obviously, there is a
quality issue here to account for the wide range of price tags. Most
cordless drills are categorized as either for light home use, or for heavy
commercial/industrial use. So, depending on your needs, you will usually
choose a drill that suits your requirements, and budget.

Ryobi Australia have recently release their
Pro Series of tools aimed at the commercial/industrial user, but
with a price tag that is very competitive to boot. Today we will take a
look at their CDL1802D 18v Pro Series Cordless Drill - The retail price
for this drill is AUD$245 and is available in Europe, UK< Australia and
New Zealand. So without further
ado, let's start drilling the product (pun intended)!

UnpackingWe received the Drill in a cardboard carton
resplendent in pictures and details of the enclosed unit. The
packaging is quite nice, but hey, this isn't art class! Let's crack it
open! Opening up the
carton exposed a molded
plastic carry case with a large Ryobi logo on front and back.
Pretty standard for commercial/industrial model tools.
Undoing the clips on the case revealed the following
items sitting neatly inside:

1 x 18 volt Ryobi CDL1802D Cordless Drill

2 x 18 volt
1.7 mAh Ni-Cad Batteries

1 x Heavy Duty 1 Hour Charger

2 x Double Ended Screw Driver
Bits

1 x Printed Instruction
Booklet

1 x Warranty Information
Booklet

Fit and finish of all the parts appeared to be very good
and we were particularly impressed with the size of the Charger. Our first
impressions were very favourable as the Drill and all other parts seemed
quite solid.

Features of the DrillNaturally, we
first took a really close look at the drill itself. Upon
removing the battery, we were pleasantly surprised by
the weight of the drill
itself. This is not a lightweight, all plastic unit like others in the
class. It feels
solid, well balanced and comfortable in the hand. Placing
the drill
on a set of scales revealed that it weighs in at 2lb 12oz or 1.26
kilograms. The battery
weighed 880 grams (1lb 15oz) giving a total weight of 2.14 kilograms (4lb
11oz) by our measurements,
although the manual states this as 2.24 kg.

A 13mm keyless chuck is
featured on the drill. This
is quite common these days,
however,
the Ryobi chuck is quite a good design in that only one
hand is required to tighten and loosen the chuck. This is possible as the
drill
features a brake that pretty much locks the drive shaft when the drill is
off.
Just grab the chuck locking ring and rotate in the required direction –
you don’t have to hold a spindle lock button or ring as is the case on
a lot of the competitor's
drills. Nice feature!

Another feature of the
drill
is a Clutch control
that has twenty-four settings,
with the twenty-fourth being direct drive. Operation of the Clutch
control, like most other drills,
is achieved by rotating the selection
ring at the front of the drill
just behind the chuck release ring. This moved freely with small
detent settings present throughout the entire range of movement, a good
sign of quality.

Now for driving screws, a
reversing switch is a must. Most
drills feature this these days.
The Ryobi’s selector is one of the sliding, through-type,
situated just above the trigger. This enables the User to quickly and
easily change the direction of the drill without changing hand positions
or using the other hand. This also has another function in that it has a
middle position which is a switch-lock
preventing accidental starting of the drill. Handy
if you have kids or other unwary hands around the place that like to get
into touble! We liked
the addition of black arrows on the selector making it quite clear as to
which position the switch needs to be in to get the desired direction
of movement.

Another feature that is very
handy for driving screws is the two-speed gearbox. By changing a sliding
selector on the top of the Drill from ‘HI’ to ‘LO’, the top
speed of the drill is changed from 1300 RPM to 380 RPM. The Ryobi CDL1802D also has a variable speed
trigger but, like all others, this only changes the amount of electricity
fed to the motor.This
means that, at low speeds, a bit of torque is lost. This is not a problem
specific to the Ryobi by any means and selecting the ‘LO’ gearbox setting
will result in more torque available,
particularly at very low speeds.

The trigger also had
a nice little feature in that it has a rubber insert at the front making
prolonged use of drill much more comfortable
and helping to prevent finger slip in use.

The handle on the Ryobi is a
center
design that evenly distributes the weight to the front and back. A
rubberised insert is again present and covers the back, most of the sides
and also up into the Drill body which will again reducing any discomfort
and fatigue from using the drill for long periods
and will help prevent damage and shock in tough commercial environments.

Ryobi CDL1802D Drilling Capacity

Timber - 38mmSteel - 13mm

Maximum Torque Available is
36Nm

Batteries and ChargerBatteries are flat bottomed
so that the drill can be placed in an upright position on the bench
and is hard to knock over without a pretty good nudge. They
are of the ‘Post’ type with two in-built
clips to secure
them
to the drill. Removing and attaching the batteries (two are included in the kit) was a very quick and easy
operation. Both batteries provided are rated at 1.7 amp hours,
thereby giving a good amount
of power and running time per
charge. The batteries themselves are high-quality Panasonic cells which
should ensure extended periods of use.

The Charger is a very big
unit and is a 1-Hour fast charge variety. We think the main reasons for
the size of the charger is that it is an Industrial model and also does
not use a separate power pack (unlike others) and has a 'normal'
power plug. Not having another power pack taking up space in the power
outlets
is a welcome feature.

Three LED’s are present on
the charger giving a visual indication of the state of the charger
and battery. The Red LED indicates fast charge, Green means the battery is fully charged
and a combination of the Yellow and Green indicating control charge mode
which should change to fast charge within five minutes. If the Yellow and
Green LED’s stay on for longer (the manual indicates fifteen minutes),
then the battery is probably damaged and cannot be charged – again, a
handy battery notification feature.

In UseWe commenced testing by
driving fifty
(50) 1½” galvanised
screws into a 2” piece of
well-dried
hardwood. The first twenty-five screws were driven in at the ‘LO’ gearbox
setting without any sign of strain from the Drill. For the next
twenty-five screws, we thought we would change the drill to the ‘HI’
gearbox setting and see how she
performed. Again, no
strain was noticed. In fact, the drill proceeded to bury the screws heads
down into the hard timber. Now, we did have a little problem but not with
the Ryobi. Placing this many screws in such close proximity to each other
led to a bit of cracking in our test piece of timber.

First Half
Score
– Ryobi 1 – Timber 0.

Next, we slid the Direction
selector on the drill
into the reverse setting and proceeded to remove the screws. The drill was
still on the ‘HI’ gearbox setting and this is when we struck another
problem but, again, not with the drill. During
the removal of the first twenty screws we snapped the heads of eleven
screws! Time to change to the ‘LO’ gearbox setting we thought. Sliding
across the gearbox selector on the top to the drill to the ‘LO’ setting,
we then removed the remaining thirty screws with ease and no broken screws
this time. Again, no strain on either gearbox setting was noticed.

Second Half
Score
– Ryobi 2 – Timber 0
- Screws 0.

Ok, fifty screws is only a small test,
so we proceeded to use the drill in our workshop for the next week
leaving our current drill to get a bit lonely high up on the shelf. After several
days of general drilling, driving, hole cutting (with up to 2 ½” hole
saws) and a bit of spade bit work, the drill was still not showing any
sign of slowing down. We finally flattened the battery
about halfway through the third day. This was a pretty good inning and we
were quite impressed with the performance and battery life. By comparison,
our other 18 volt drill would have ran out of puff not much into the first
day,although it is getting on a bit now
in age.

So, now we had a flat battery,it was
over to the charger. We let the battery cool down for about fifteen
minutes after use, which is always a good idea
and helps to prolong life and ensure the battery receives
a full charge. Sliding the battery
post into the Charger caused the Red
LED to come to life. Only one hour later our battery
was fully charged. Of course during this hour, we were not idle as we had
the second battery
clipped into
the drill
and proceeded to complete the jobs
at hand.

And speaking of hands, ours were not at all fatigued nor
did we have any sore/rubbed areas at the base of the thumb that we have
had occur using other drills. We have the rubberized
handle and switch to thank for this.

ConclusionsWe have heard a few complaints about Ryobi
tools in the past but these have been mainly with their handy-man (budget) series of tools,
often strangely expected to perform commercial tasksby their users.
Battery life has been an issue on all types and brands of budget drills.
With this model aimed at the professional level of the market, Ryobi has
needed to up the ante in features, reliability and build quality. After
giving the drill a good work out, we do feel that they have achieved the
features and build quality elements. However, it is not possible to judge
the reliability in such a short time period so we will revisit this review
after 6 or more months and give you an update!
We are confident at this stage that the CDL1802D will continue to perform
well for years to come.

In summary though, we liked the drill very much and thought
that it matched or bettered most drills in its class and price range, both in performance and ease
of use. With comfort, lots of power, two batteries and a 1-hour Charger,
we believe that the Ryobi 18 volt is a good choice
and would be a welcome addition to anyone’s tool collection.

Thanks goes to Andrew Miller
from Ryobi Australia for
his assistance with this review.